Jared Padalecki tells us what’s to come.

September 11, 2008 - Supernatural returns next week, picking up from one hell of a season finale – if you’ll forgive the pun. Yes, when last we saw the Winchester Brothers, Dean (Jensen Ackles) was killed and sent to hell, as his brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) looked on in horror. It’s no secret that Ackles is still a series regular this year, but of course there are many questions about how exactly Dean can still be on the show.

Last week, I paid a visit to Supernatural’s set in Vancouver. At a real life former mental institution (posing as a retirement home for the series), Sam and Dean were once again on a mission, in scenes that will occur in episode 6 of this season.

During a break from filming, Jared Padalecki sat down outside with me, with the Winchesters’ iconic Chevy Impala parked a few feet away from us. We talked about what’s to come in Season 4 of Supernatural, how Sam has changed through the years and the fascinating turns Sam and Dean’s story are taking.

Jared Padalecki: I love it. I was just talking to Jim Beaver ["Bobby"] about that today. This is gonna surprise a lot of people, but I just finally, today, watched the finale of Season 3. I read it and I acted in it, so I knew what happened. I’d done my ADR, so I’d seen some of it, but I hadn’t seen the whole episode until today. And I was talking to Jim, and I was like, “Man, it was a good episode! Cool shots and the tension…” And he brought up, “Yeah, and I loved that they killed him.” I said, “I do too!” The whole sequence where the bells starts ringing, and you think “What does that mean? Does that mean… they’re going to kill him?” I remember when I read it, I was going, “Aw, this is bad ass! I can’t believe they’re gonna do that!” I love that about the show. I’ve died. Jensen’s died. Our dad died. And other than Jim Beaver, essentially all of our favorite guest stars have died. It’s like, [Executive Producer Eric] Kripke don’t F around! Love ‘em, kill ‘em! That’s how you know you’ve made it. They say if you have a Weird Al song written about you, you know you’ve made it. But you know you’ve made it on Supernatural when you die. It’s like, “Cool, I’m in!”

IGN: So the question now, of course, is how does Season 4 pick up from that?

Padalecki: From episode 1, Dean’s back. And there’s a whole period where I don’t believe it’s him. I think it’s a demon inheriting his body or a remnant or something, and Bobby Singer freaks out. We finally figure out it’s him and we’re like, “How did you get back? I tried everything for four months.” But one of the things I loved that’s gonna happen this season, is we’re going to go back and we’re going to see Dean in hell and see what happened in those four months. We’re going to go back and see Sam on Earth and him burying his brother and trying and trying [to save him], with everything – making deals with demons — Doing everything he possibly can to save his brother and none of it works.

So there’s a really interesting way that Dean gets out of hell that we don’t know about just yet. We’re only six episodes in, so we’ll find out I think right in the meat of the episodes, between episodes nine and fifteen probably – right in the middle. I’m really excited about going back and the characters are different now. Obviously, Dean’s been in hell and Sam’s been without Dean, so I had to become a badass on my own. There’s a scene in the first episode where Sam’s like, “Dean, I think we should do it this way,” and Dean’s like, “Well, the older brother’s back. The smarter brother. So we’re going to do it my way.” And Sam kind of takes offense. He’s like, “Dude, I’ve been here on my own, for four months and I’ve been doing well.” They’re both more individual now and they’re both holding secrets from each other, so I think it’s going to be neat to see that play out.

IGN: Sam’s gotten a bit darker and more intense as the show has progressed, especially last season, as he tried to save Dean. Has it been fun for you to take him on this path?

Padalecki: Absolutely. And I love the darker side of Sam. From the pilot, obviously, he was a college boy in his Abercrombie sweatshirt and blue jeans and Converse sneakers. Pretty cookie-cutter. And we’ve seen him go dark and one of my favorite things to do as an actor was I did an episode called “Born Under a Bad Sign” where I get possessed by a demon. And I got to play that kind of dark, fun, badass character and I loved it. So I was really hoping to see some darker sides of Sam, and the shoot first, ask questions later side of Sam. And I’ve gotten the chance to do that a couple of times this season, so I can’t wait to see how far dark and how deep we go with it.

IGN: Your show has a nice sense of humor, sometimes with the little things like the aliases you use. I see in this script you call yourselves Agents Tyler and Perry. Is it nice to have those lighter moments in there?

Padalecki: It is, it is. There have been a couple of cool episodes where we’re usually rock stars. I think we’ve been Page and Plant and Agents Young and Young. I think we were even Jagger and Richards one time. So a lot of cool shout outs. That’s cool, being a classic rock fan. But also, there was one episode where we were reading the places and they were Ogdenville and North Haverbrook, which is from a Simpsons episode where they were doing the Monorail. And I was reading it at a table read and I was like, “Simpsons!” I yelled it and kind of made an ass of myself. It’s really cool to see the writers’ kind of weird, crazy sense of humor, wired in and out of the scripts.

IGN: Do you try and find out what’s to come on the show ahead of time?

Padalecki: I love knowing what’s ahead. I love getting the scripts as soon as possible, not because I need to memorize them way ahead of time – I’m usually so busy memorizing what I’m doing that day, that I can’t really work on that ahead of time. I just like to know what’s coming up in the future. Especially if there’s something like… The best example I can think of is I had to do a sex scene in the second season and I found out two or three episodes ahead of time, and I thought, “Aw, s**t!” I think this was right after eating a big old steak and some cheesecake. [Laughs] I’m like, “I’m gonna read the next script,” and it says, “Sam is naked,” and I go, “Come on! You could have told me this a month ago, so I could have started working out or something.” But if I have a big monologue coming up or a big scene coming up, I like to know and just get it in the back of my head.

But conversely, I think Eric is the kind of writer and creator that likes to be able to change things up – to watch the dailies and the episodes and take a cue from it and go, “Ooh, I like that,” and then put it in this next script. I think he has a master plan, but he likes to keep it flexible. So we don’t know a whole lot. We’re shooting episode 6 right now and I just got the script yesterday for episode 7 and we’re going to start that next week. So it’s not like I’m figuring out what we’re going to be shooting in a month. I have no idea, and maybe they don’t either. I wish I could know a little bit more ahead of time. I think I do my best work when I have the most time to prepare, so it’s a little frustrating, but that’s episodic television. You’re making a 42 minute movie every eight days, so the writers are hauling ass, we’re hauling ass, post-production is hauling ass… It’s just one of the necessary evils.

IGN: You mentioned a sex scene, but in general, neither of the Winchester boys have very good luck with relationships.

Padalecki: [Laughs] Yeah. He had one in Season 1, I had one in Season 2 and we kind of got rid of it after that. We don’t have much luck with women. Sam especially - his mom burning on the ceiling; his girlfriend burning on the ceiling. He’s kind of S.O.L. when it comes to relationships, but I guess that’s one of the themes of the show. Sometimes you have to make some s**tty sacrifices to do the right thing.

IGN: We’re sitting a few feet from the Chevy Impala, so I have to ask if you guys ever find yourself sitting inside it, making Dukes of Hazzard references.

Padalecki: Oh, for sure! When no one’s looking, we’ve been known to do some donuts around parking lots and some power slides and peel outs and stuff like that. I haven’t yet jumped through the window. But it’s a character on its own, just like the General Lee was. It’s been pleasant to have the Impala around for the last four seasons.

Source: IGN